I Murdered One of God’s Creatures

I think it’s time to blame the majority of my problems on the voodoo of self-fulfilling prophecies. For example, last week’s paranoia gave way to a flood of dark omens. On Monday I was run off the road by a car that veered into my lane just as I removed my seat belt. I had to divert myself out of the street and into a shrubbery. Later that day I discovered the back end of a bunny hanging from the front of The Goat Man’s cherry red Volkswagen Beetle. He’d somehow managed to hit it straight on and wedge the front half of its body into his grill, leaving it dangling like a vile hood trophy.

Everywhere I looked, I saw doom.

The next day was busier and even more deadly. I attended a series of events that required me to hobnob with VIPs and pretend I’m not a social deviant with all sorts of subversive agendas. I went from breakfast with the Governor, to a banquet with our legislators, and then a series of meetings all over the city.

When the day finally ended, I trudged across the parking lot to my car. I opened the door, threw my bag inside, and screamed.

I’m sorry, but just be glad I didn’t post a photo of the bunny.

At some point in my long list of comings and goings, this tiny mouse had decided that of all the places it could forage for food or hope of a better life, it needed to jump in my car. I’ve thought this through and there’s really only a 5-second window of opportunity for such an endeavor. This poor little rodent had poorly calculated his plan.

I backed away in horror and immediately called The Boyfran. This was no time for female empowerment and I chose to disregard the fact I’d traveled all over SE Asia where rats are the size of Schnauzers. I very rarely make actual phone calls, so he immediately answered.

“I have a situation,” I said, “You need to come here now.”

“What about the gym?”

“This is life and death!”

I told him what had happened and he started laughing.

“Can’t you just scrape it off?” he asked.

“But it looks so peaceful.” I stepped forward to take a photo. “Hurry up, I’m going to die here.”

I stood in the burning hot parking lot for 20 minutes. The Boyfran finally arrived and walked to the driver’s side like he was coming onto the scene of a CSI investigation.

“Where’s the body?”

I pointed silently, then whimpered.

“I’m a terrible human.”

“Don’t worry,” The Boyfran said, “He died instantly.”

I stepped away as he used his shoe to scrape the lifeless body off my door frame. I covered my ears so I wouldn’t hear the sound of its sad little existence thudding onto the concrete.

Despite my horror, I glanced at its body like a rubbernecker at a highway accident.

“I think we should bury him,” I said.

“We are not burying it. If this were in your house, you would try to poison it.”

I couldn’t argue with that. We stood in silence. I was just about to give a moving speech about the value of it’s stunted life when The Boyfran began acting like he was going to kick the sad rodent carcass at me.

“Stop it!” I screamed. “That’s one of God’s creatures!”

He held his hands up in surrender and carefully scooted the mouse off the pavement and into the grass.

“Maybe a bird will eat it,” he said.

It was a small comfort to think about how I’d just contributed to The Circle of Life, but there was no way I was ready to move on and go to the gym. We needed to sit Shiva and honor this loss of life with Tex Mex.

We stopped by my house so I could change out from my Governor-worthy clothing. As I stepped out the bathroom, a flash of black appeared at my feet.

“It’s a mouse!” The Boyfran yelled from the bottom of the stairs.

I screamed and kicked it away as I ran down the hall. I’d already realized it was a black sock he’d thrown at me, but I was in fight or flight mode.

“You’re evil,” I told him. “You deserve bad things to happen to you.”

“Don’t say that. I could die.”

It’s true. The darkness was closing in.

We went to a taco place and bathed ourselves in queso as we pondered the mystery that is death. I was fixated on the idea that I was cursed and described in detail how a murder of crows had been waiting on my car during lunch, signifying my looming demise. On second thought, they may have pegged me as the sort of person that transports carrion just inside her vehicle.

Somewhere around my second taco, I had an epiphany. The mouse wasn’t an omen of death, but a testament to the way the universe is watching out for me. If I hadn’t snuffed its life out with the slam of a door, it would have gotten into the car with me. I would have started driving and made it onto a heavily trafficked street before realizing I’d been invaded by vermin. There’s no telling how I would have reacted but I can assure you it would not have been reasonable or safe.

“Many lives could have been lost,” I said. “That mouse was a sacrifice.”

It’s easy for me to fixate on all the ways my life is a disaster. But for every unfortunate thing, I can easily imagine a way it could have been ten thousand times worse. By all accounts, I’m actually quite lucky.

Do you believe in self-fulfilling prophecies? Are you a lucky or unlucky person? How important do you think perspective is, when evaluating your life?

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Oh Aussa, I am the same about dead things, and especially mice! I once walked down my stairs from my bedroom to be greeted by a dead mouse (courtesy of my cat) but I have no boyfran to call, so I waited for my Fresh Direct delivery of groceries (that morning), and asked the delivery guy to dispose of the body, which mercifully he did. I gave him a $20 tip.

I had to wonder about life when I opened my car door after a long night of boss niceness and hit a skunk in the butt. The skunk wasn’t in the mood for a butt bump and let me have the full spray which also covered the inside of my car. I shed my clothes and got into bed and my wife’s only comment, “You didn’t drink and drive did you?” ps: Had to get rid of the car………..

Nooo! Oh my gosh, no! I almost stepped on a skunk when I was working night shift here at the hospital– for some reason I thought it made sense for me to run across this huge field to go to the 24 hour gym across the way. I BARELY managed to launch myself backwards just as the skunk flared it’s fur out in all directions. I never ever ever did that again. That’s one mistake I’ve learned from.

Most likely that mouse will be reincarnated as something that has a much better chance of successfully making it into my car. Like an ice cream cone or shopping bag full of things I never really needed.

It’s usually the other way for me. After getting into a minor car accident that will take hours upon hours of police reports and calls to the insurance companies, I often think of what happened preceding the accident that caused me to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 🙂

Oh that’s a majorly tough one– retracing your steps to see what could have happened differently to avoid the whole thing. I always do that after something is stolen from me (which has happened more times than I care to admit). I suppose– if we are bent on being sunshiney and optimistic– we can realize how close we came to it being ten times worse. Gosh I’m really not in that great a mood, not sure why I’m so hell bent on optimism 😉

I have taken a ride with mice…fell out of the dashboard. I had borrowed an old truck to move some things. They were just little babies but freaked me out just the same. You were saved by the quick closing of a door and a little mouse. Great story!

Ah, little baby mice! I think we call those “pinkies”…. we used to have a snake growing up and fed it baby mice when it was litte itself. It was always sad… it’s weird how they’re both adorable and terrifying, depending upon context.

i think i’m pretty lucky, but once I’m on a downhill slide with my luck, it doesn’t end until i find myself in the bottom of a canyon and have to crawl my way back out onto the good luck deck once again )

“There’s no telling how I would have reacted but I can assure you it would not have been reasonable or safe.” – I was thinking this. I once had a spider come down in front of my face while driving. I slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car…like I wasn’t on the highway…

Oh my gosh, a spider, no. I had one do that Little Miss Muffet thing when I opened a closet, and I think my body actually imploded on itself and then launched me backwards like some move from The Exorcist. Combine that with a moving vehicle and it’s almost certain death.

I’m not afraid of much, but a mouse scooting around my feet while driving would send me into a panic. I would be afraid it would bite me. You are pretty lucky you slammed that sucker in the door!! What timing!

I hate spiders but I also don’t like killing them. I have a can of RAID that was in my house when I moved in (bad sign?) and The Boyfran has used it a few times to kill spiders that congregate around my front door. The other day I heard him say “it’s okay little guy, it’ll all be over soon.” I felt HORRIBLE.

oddly enough, we often free spiders in my house. Trap em in a cup and then take them across the street to free them. Unless they’re really big, then it is a 3 ring circus while we attempt to kill a giant spider without it attacking, or running away. gah. talk about the heebie jeebies!

I lived in Eugene, Oregon for a year and used to joke that all the spiders I ever caught and released migrated to Oregon to stalk my apartment. The place was overrun with spiders. Literally every side of the building was covered with webs and spiders. Luckily they mostly stayed outside but sometimes just going through the front door was perilous.

I was out in the wilderness earlier and there were spiders everywhere. It looked glorious and like a foggy magical spiderland. Why would a spider want to live in a house when such options exist? We may never know.

RIGHT?!?! I couldn’t ever repeat that. I actually felt this exact same way about the bunny thing and probably shouldn’t have been in so much awe about it because I think the universe was conspiring to prove me wrong.

Gunmetal Geisha is constantly telling me to buy a lottery ticket because of the weird sort of odds that rule my life. Maybe I should do it…

I oft times drive a hundred plus miles for speaking engagements. As I pass through the bare countryside of rural South Georgia, I see many of God’s creatures along side the road…those who have attempted to cross to the other side and were met with a ton and a half of Detroit metal. On a typical morning, I see deer, ‘possums, skunks, snakes, and rodents of various kinds. Now, we even have large dead wild hogs littering the ditches. One Sunday morning, I saw two small alligators trying to make it across. (God’s creatures do pass to The Other side!)

Alligators! I would have to stop for that, I think! I saw some sort of strange pig/dog combination on the side of the road that I swear was a chupacabra! This also reminds me I need to blog about the wolf my friends and I hit while driving in the Appalachians… that was a fun night, ha.

I once had a bird fly itself into my grill and not die. It sat on my radiator screaming and I couldn’t get the police, animal control, or the ASPCA to care. That was a horrible, horrible day. (Although in the end, the bird did wander away still living. So could have definitely been worse).

Cassandra!!!! That’s the most terrible thing I’ve read today, holy shite! I mean… I guess it survived, so perhaps it’s out there in the world, motivating other birds to overcome their life obstacles…. but damn. A horrible day, indeed.

Aussa. There was a dead mouse in our driveway the other day. What is wrong with us?

(My husband put on one of his surgical gloves, picked it up, inverted the glove around the mouse, put the whole thing in a bag, closed the bag, and threw it in the outdoor trash can. Later when he took the trash to the curb he said it still managed to STINK right through all the plastic.)

I am a big believer in manifest destiny – what you think today becomes your tomorrow! And based on your latest run of thoughts, I’m really glad I live several States over!

But, perspective! My son and I were driving home from church and I looked over at the speedometer and said “You are only going 41, can you speed up a little” to which he replied “I’m doing 45” I looked again, and then I leaned over and sure enough, as I moved, I could see he was going faster… but before I could say anything, he spouted off “Perspective is amazing, isn’t it?”

A few months ago, I discovered a decapitated cat on the front lawn at work. I called our facility manager expecting to have him say, “yeah, I know,” but apparently, no one else noticed it. How is that even possible? How do you not notice a headless kitty cat five feet from the front door? Nature is awful.

Oh Aussa! I loved all of this–the humor the horror and the queso.
If every self-fulfilling prophesy that crossed my brain had manifested, zombies would have appeared years ago.
Most of all, I loved your perspective at the end. It made me smile and count my own blessings

Haha thanks Michelle! And oh gosh, let us not prophesy about zombies… it’s probably going to happen. My brother and I came up with a very paranoid conspiracy theory about zombies, I should ask him if I’m allowed to write about it online 😉

Death is a weird concept. Also, mild English tangent: “a murder of crows” is probably my favorite saying to express a multitude of anything. I wish we could say things like “a murder of toddlers” or “a murder of housewives” (without it sounding like an actual murder of those things, obviously). Incubus riffed off this phrase as well with one of the best album titles in recent memory: “A Crow Left of the Murder”. Excellent album too.

I don’t think I’ve heard of that album, actually. The only Incubus album I know is that one with the song that’s like “floating down a river…” because it makes me think of being a very wise 7th grader and reciting Ayn Rand to my friends by candlelight.

I guess I do, because I’ve experienced one. Back when I enlisted in the Army, I was a pretty devout Southern Baptist. Well, on the dog tags, there’s a spot for your religion. I guess I missed the spot where I was supposed to write that down, and they printed mine to state that I had no religious preference. I didn’t think anything about it then, but over the next few months I found that my religiosity pretty much disappeared.

I like to think I make good decisions, but I won’t deny that luck has helped me get as far as I have in life. At the very least, it’s kept anything from getting seriously worse. And perspective is everything. Folks in Africa are grateful for clean water, while we get bent out of shape when our cell phones die. Our problem seems insignificant to them, but in the world we live in, losing our primary means of connection and communication can potentially be devastating.

This was such an interesting comment. The bit about the dog tags is fascinating. I too am a recovering Southern Baptist 😉 I go to a Presbyterian church now and we get to drink wine and celebrate Oktoberfest. Haaa..

Your thoughts on perspective are also sobering. My thoughts have been all over the place of late– my undergrad studies had a fair amount to do with Africa so I’ve been educating The Boyfran over the last few months on that whole other world and reality… it certainly makes my meltdowns look criminal.

Awww Aussa, Those were sad stories. I hate killing things but when there is no intention and is unavoidable it is hard to beat myself up too much. Just some of those sad things that happen from time to time. My Grandmother) rest her soul) had an old saying that she got from her Grandmother about crows. Apparently it is the number of crows that is important. She used to say: One crow sorrow, two crows joy, three crows girl and four crows boy.” She could go much higher than that but I can’t recall the rest. I assume the “girl/boy”thing is in case you’re pregnant or may be that it will be a girl or boy who will bring a big chamge on your life. She never explained it.

I sometimes get days when everything looks negative or goes wrong. I just sort of hunker down with a helmet and try to not come out any further behind than when the day started. Rest assured the problems rarely go further than one day. It is hard to not anticipate further bad things which are self-prophesied. Oh, on the flip side, sometimes we get a day where everything we touch goes amazingly well. When that happens, push it and try things that you wouldn’t normally try – they will likely work out.

Anyway, I will say a prayer for your mouse and the rabbit. It is a sad but unavoidbale part of life..

Oh I love the rhyming crow thing! What do two geese mean? There was a morning when I was walking into work and there were two geese on top of the building, looking down at me. They waited until I was just to the door and then flew off. The whole thing felt eerie and like a movie.

I love your advice, woah. When you have a shite day, just hunker down and try not to be pushed back. When you have a glorious one, ride the wave. That’s how we get through life, I love it. I could paint it, maybe.

Yes, I do believe in self-fulfilling prophecies. Only because I believe that the power of our thoughts and words are stronger than we realize. OMG, you’re right, what if you were driving when the poor fella popped up on your leg or something? Yikes!

I posted a blog in January about getting stung by a wasp in my bathroom! Would you believe, I found a wasp in there again yesterday? Maybe there’s some freaky energy in the atmosphere with the negativity in our world. At least this time I didn’t get stung. 😛

There was once a mouse in my bed. MY BED. The Boyfran and I leaned back against the pillows to watch a movie on my laptop and the little varmint lept and then scampered away. Needless to say, there was no movie watching after that.

And a wasp sounds scary! My coworker was attacked by a whole nest of them just a couple weeks ago :-/

Haha amazingly, no! This is one of the few smart, normal, stable ones. She was just walking down an exterior staircase… of course, it’s Maintenance’s job to spray, but… who would ever expect them to do their jobs?

The whole CSI investigation line had me cracking up. You’re hilarious and awesome. This one time, my entire family nearly got crushed to death by a cow. What can I say? It only happens in India. Maybe it’s time to blog about that story. 🙂

Hahaha oh my gosh, yes it most certainly is time to blog about that! Cows can be scary, I remember a friend of mine lived on a farm when we were younger and one of the cows got loose and chased us. I still picture it being like the size of a school bus.

Perspective is absolutely everything! Trust me. Perspective informs how you see the world and thus how you feel about things, and thus how the world treats you. A circle.

And how amazingly unlucky of that mouse to time it’s entrance into your car at the exact moment you shut the door. Reminds me of a mole that popped its head up out of its underground hole at the same moment that I drove over it with the lawn mower, decapitating it. Bad day for the mole. Lucky kill for me. It’s all about perspective.

I agree! It doesn’t always help me immediately snap myself out of negativity but it does nudge me in the right direction. Eventually.

Holy shit. You’re kidding. No, you’re not. That’s awful. For the mole.. was it messy? Don’t answer. Maybe answer… I mean, he must have been stupidly curious, it’s not like he wouldn’t have heard a roaring beast above his little tunnel. Now I feel bad for him. A circle.

I’m eating lunch while I read this and right as I’m about to shovel food into my mouth I see the mouse picture. Ewwww. (It didn’t stop me from eating)

I absolutely believe in self fulfilling prophecies. So much so that it makes me paranoid. If I have a headache I automatically wonder if it’s an aneurism. Then I freak out because I know it’s not my brain bleeding, but my thoughts about having an aneurism will surely mean that one day I’ll have one. It’s so much fun being inside my head!

So there’s a dead cockroach in the top drawer of my dresser. I know it’s dead because when I first saw it I sprayed an ass-ton (whatever that quantity is) of Raid in the drawer and slammed it shut. A week later I opened the drawer and he is dead, upside down and dead. He is still there because though I’ve killed many a roaches in my day, I can’t bring myself to put my hand in that dresser. I should have a boy come handle it. Or the fresh direct guy. I should get fresh direct!

Hey, since this just came up in conversation, if you haven’t yet read my Aquatic Life Series on my blog, I suggest you do it. It may help with your sadness/acceptance of killing a creature of the lord.

I had to google Fresh Direct because I live in a cultural slum. I want them to deliver my groceries too…

And cockroaches, ick. We have them at work… they always choose to die in incredibly conspicuous places that make it difficult for me to pretend they aren’t there. But in a drawer? You can just keep him in there until he decomposes into good old fashioned drawer dust.

I am not a prophecy driven person. Most things fall between cause and effect and random shit with a little bit of some people are just assholes thrown in. Having said that, I think my house is out to get me because my top step on the cellar stairs is 2 inches taller than the others and every time I step down it I never know if the extra gravity caused by that extra height is going to be enough to make my weak leg collapse and land me at the bottom of the stairs quivering like a mass of Jello. The good perspective on that would be that the spiders and mice and other critters in the basement would not go hungry for a long time.

Sick out! To the idea of basement creatures eating you, that is. Is this the sort of thing you compulsively imagine every single time you walk up them? I am always imagining myself falling head first down my stairs. Or my dog doing the same, because she is rambunctious and rotund and gets carried away. That’s why she is my spirit animal.

My mind goes everywhere at once. I can think about weird stuff like that while replaying a conversation i had earlier and several other things all at the same time. A normal moment for me has the TV on the computer open to at least 3 screens and music playing(or a movie on the computer instead of music) and usually the TV is going back and forth between anywhere from 2 to 5 channels.

The operative word in this is, obviously, fixate. It is often, at least in questionable situation, not the desirable action. Boyfran’s remark about poisoning it, puts it all into perspective.

As for floppy-ears, we in our village are surrounded by suicide rabbits. They lay in cover at roadsides until just the right moment. Freaks me out every time. It’s the Jackalope’s that one wants on their front grill.

And smothering/slathering oneself with queso sounds delighful. It’s just at most taco shacks, it’s not really cheese. Melted tupperware with a little tumeric, perhaps…

Hahahaha noooo! Poor rabbits! How awful! I recently saw a video from Japan where a woman runs down the street with a bag of rabbit treats (I assume) and probably 60 or so rabbits chase after her then pop up on their hind legs. Why must they be suicidal in your village? You clearly need a girl with a bag of treats to give them a reason to live.

Of course, it’s completely by accident. It’s pretty much a freak accident. You both (including the mouse) didn’t expect to see this coming, and you can analyze it … um, to death … all you want. It’s going to be okay. I’ve grown less squeamish of such dead animals all in thanks to Lou the cat. However, rest assured, Karma is not going to strike at you viciously.

We’ll say a few prayers for the little guy, who’s enjoying all the peanuts and treats he can eat in the big, wide blue above.

Ah, Aussa! You don’t know what I did a few years ago. I’m ashamed and continue to live in guilt…

One early morning, while getting my coffee ready before heading to work, I see this little creature in the kitchen sink, going down the garbage disposal. Without thinking, I hit the “on” button. I still have nightmares over what I did, can’t explain it and can’t get over it. I’m a murderer!

Oh poor Aussa! And that poor little mousie! I haven’t read any comments yet, and we have had enough comments between us that I know how you feel about this. I also agree that had he made it and run up your leg while you were driving things might have ended very much worse for you, and your vehicle, however the poor little guy probably would have survived and scurried off while you were unconscious, waiting for the police and the ambulance to arrive. bastard. see? I once had one run across my bare foot! Apparently he was hanging out under the dog’s water bowl and when I picked it up to rinse and refill he just couldn’t hold on! Instant adrenaline! He really scared me, imagine this from someone who had pet rats!

I also kinda killed one in the oven once. Apparently he was in there eating dog food when I opened the door and he rushed toward me. What was I to do? I shut the door! Yeah, he kinda got stuck in the hingey part of the door and when I opened the door again his dying move was to put his head on the door while his body lie on the bottom of the oven. Did not make dinner that night. I had to wait for Mr. Wonderful to get home to remove it. I tried. more than once I tried. I just couldn’t do it. and I couldn’t close the oven door either. took the dog into the other room as I am pretty sure he wouldn’t have had a problem removing it with his mouth. yech.

OOOH that is awful about the oven! I used traps once when we lived in The Hovel. We killed like 17 mice… all of which were removed by Shleisel’s boyfriends. I remember I was home one night and I saw one run across my baseboard and it was adorable. 5 minutes later I heard a trap go off and it started squealing. It was horrible. I turned my music up and refused to leave my room 🙁 I probably should have put it out of its misery. UGH.

When we lived in Seattle, my husband wanted to put lots of metal around Child #4 when she started to drive, so he came home with a used Range Rover. This thing was so huge it had it’s own zip code and a Starbucks branch in the back seat. Needless to say, about a minute later #4 was driving around in my darling little orange Element, and I was steering the 4WD Queen Mary around the streets of Seattle. It was a particularly cold winter and many mornings I would fire up the behemoth and head down our mountain road. As it warmed up, I would hear the engine squeaking. The squeaks would escalate in volume until I was almost all the way to work and then die off. Turns out that “die” was the operative word, I found out when I finally got around to taking it to the mechanic. He showed me where the insulation blanket had been pulled back into little nests, lined with bits of the dry dog food we kept in the garage (next to the car). And then there were the bits of roast rodent. Seems that most mornings, as the engine fired up I was slowly cooking its freeloading vermin.

I walked straight over to the dealer side of the operation, traded in the car which I was SO never going to enter again, and bought the Mercedes SUV of my dreams. On the way home, I stopped at the Kitty shelter and brought home two siblings, one of whom became the greatest mouser I’ve ever encountered. We all lived happily ever after. Except for the bat, of course.

Holy crap. First off– I love old range rovers! I always felt safest in my Discovery though… but there were no roasting animals, that I recall. That is nasty and horrible that you were driving around, tormenting the wildlife that only ever wanted to seek shelter from the cruelty of life.

I think you’re forgetting that wildlife was seeking shelter AND the special order for obese old dog with kidney issues dog food that cost roughly the GDP of small African countries or powdered platinum. I sleep fine at night despite their execution.

Yes there is absolutely a thing called “Self-fulfilling prophecies” which can be good or evil depending on how you choose to use your power. You need to watch The Secret which shows you just how much power we have to bring both good and bad things into our lives! It’s a great movie! Poor little mouse…but seriously? Calling the Boyfran to come get it off your car?? You are officially a pansy! HA HA HA! And, he will probably never let you live it down! You have given him ammunition for life!! Even if you don’t marry him….10 years from now he will be sitting in a bar and the story will go…”Speaking of rodents! Let me tell you about this one chick I used to date!” I can hear it now!!! LMAO! 😀

Haha! I know! I knew I was being ridiculous but I felt quite free in that ridiculousness… like, if one of my friends had told me she was calling her boyfriend to do that for her, I would have been like “step aside, watch my shoe.” But in that moment…. no. I just… no. Ha!

Hey, the poor little rodent just up and died. The clock just happened to stop when it was in your car, Aussa. Nobody’s fault. Poor timing is all. Hey, the Boyfran was right to nudge it into the grass as a meal for a hungry and homeless predator. Kumbaya. I did think your taco story was going to go off in a direction where you were going to wonder about the origin of the filling, though … Glad your mind didn’t wander off there because of your rodent experience.

Your P.O. box is Texas. Does that mean you breakfasted with the Governor of Texas, himself?! He’s been in the news A LOT recently. What a glorious opportunity that must have been.

You drive the world’s most expensive mousetrap. There are cheaper, easier ways, you know. You absolutely should have posted a photo of the bunny. I mean, c’mon. That’s what cell phones are for. Is it too late? And look at you turning it all on it’s head and making it a positive in the end. Well played. You’re a regular Mary Poppins.

I thought about having a clickable link so people had the option and then having it just flash up and say WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU SICKO! but then below it would be the actual link to the photo for people who really are sickos. Like me. But I’m also too lazy for all that.

I’m the one who killed a mouse with cherry pie filling..they are nasty things indeed. You did the right thing and at least did not pull out weaponery and shoot the black sock. I am a lucky person, I believe the universe will always provide as long as I ask nicely. the more you fear the iggly things you risk sumoning them–great post Aussa, needed a good laugh..

I remember that! Okay, this was the exact same sort of bizarre karmic timing. And oh is that how iggly things work? Okay I will give a big middle finger to the igglies of the world, hopefully that helps.

Hahahaha! It’s so true. I hear some sound at the door and I’m all “who do I need to kill, let me at them” but if I see a scurrying flash of rodent out the corner of my eye, I’ll be hanging from the ceiling fan.

Mexican food is an appropriate reaction to most situations, actually. And perspective is a basic requirement when dealing with rodents. Remember my story about menacing the rats with an improvised flame-thrower? You can bet that there were a few “How did it ever come to this?” moments while that was coming down.

Yes! I remember the rats and the flame-thrower! I saw a dead rat tonight, actually, while I was walking in the wilderness. It did not look as peaceful as this mouse, it looked like it had died quite miserably, possibly of some long suffering illness. It was grimacing and partially covered in sand. I had to share that here, as a way of coping or something. Apparently.

Dayummm….the guvenuh! I did a book reading once at my former elementary school alongside the mayor, but the GOVERNOR. Niiiiice. :0) And I would have totally freaked out about the mouse-thing too. Ewww…

By the way, I’m glad you and the boyfran are still together. I guess he knows he’s in this deal for life, right? Heheh…

Right you are, Aussa… it IS relative. I did a very bad job of expressing that because silly stereotypes were getting in the way 😉 I should point out that Cimmy has helped me bait all sorts of traps for mice, ants, and so on. She’s been at turns grossed out and fascinated, so, yeah, I’ll ‘fess up.

Plus my mother loved it when my grandfather would bring her home horned lizards from his soil expeditions (he was a soil scientist). So, I actually know better!

Things happen for a reason Aussa. Sometimes bad luck and doom seems to follow but maybe it is just a reminder to take heed. I was recently on my way back home from a wonderful vacation in Lake Tahoe and was pretty much obivious to the speed I was going. Apparently the CHP officer was not so oblivious. GRRRR
So I spend the rest of the trip home and several hours after that cursing my bad luck. That is when a close friend asked me if I had considered the fact that being pulled over may have been the one thing that saved my life or the lives of others? Quite possibly had I been allowed to continue on a semi truck may have overturned, or worse. Who knows. But I just consider myself lucky now. Pay the fine and go to traffic school. Learn my lesson and count my blessings. Count your blessings too my friend. You have many.

Thanks John! I know I definitely have a lot of blessings 🙂 And I really like your perspective on the ticket– its kind of like we should always be thankful for whatever it is that happens. Easier said than done.

Earlier tonight, The Boyfran ran two red lights. TWO! That stuff frightens me because I read a Good Housekeeping article about it when I was like 8. I told The Boyfran that I hoped he got a ticket for it the next time, so he’d stop doing it. He was not very thankful for that, haha.

LOL. Well I hope you are BOTH safe from now on. My ticket really is a bit amusing as well as I have driven powerful vehicles and muscle cars most of my life. Never ever caught speeding. Pretty clean record all my life. I got practical about a year and a half ago and now drive a little 4 cylinder Toyota. Guess what I was driving when I got my ticket? GRRRRRRRRR Oh well………Lesson learned.

I agree to a certain extent on being thankful. I think we should always SEARCH for a silver lining or lesson to be learned. It is easier said than done because (as you put it) SHITE just happens. No silver lining….no message. Just SHITE for SHITES sake. LOL

Yes, I believe. I believe. I am a walking testament to the immense power. That and karma. I have had to actively stop myself from having these crazy thoughts since I’m convinced all of them will come to fruition. I do like how you managed to reason that the mouse was a sacrifice. You do have a very good point about what your reaction might have been if a live mouse climbed up to smile at you while driving. See, the universe threw you a bone!

You know… I can’t hardly talk about this because it doesn’t make sense, but when I was 13, I started writing a story… and over the next 8 years or so, every little thing in that story happened in my life. And I’m talking BIZARRE things, like most of the things I blog about. Sometimes I feel like it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I were to ever go back and re-develop and write that story, people would say “oh, it makes sense why she would write that, with the things that have happened in her life,” but really, no. It predates that. I bet I sound like a nut.

Hahaha….erm, can I say i’m glad that the mouse was not damaged further because I would have been traumatised for life by the photo…I saw a cat leave a half eaten mouse once and it was enough for me run away screaming for the cleaner to remove it from my line of view…but good story though…hahaha…:)

Ha,ha,ha! Craziness! Can you imagine a live mouse scurrying around inside of your car and around your feet while driving????? OMG. Thanks goodness he was sacrificed to save many unsuspecting potential lives! Argh! I would have been so mad at my mate if he had thrown a sock at me! So typical of this male species! 🙂

He kept teasing me with “mice” all freaking night! And no– I really cannot imagine if the mouse had gotten in. I don’t see how that could have EVER ended well. It would have either snuck off and died of natural causes or it would have tried to cuddle me or I would have seen it out the corner of my eye or a million other things that all end in me dying.

This doesn’t answer ANY of the questions at the end of your post, but once I saw a really amazing slug on a busy trail, and moved it so that it wouldn’t get trampled. I put it down, and about 10 seconds later a deer came bounding out of nowhere and trampled it. It would have lived had I not moved it.

You may be able to email MailChimp directly and ask. I saw they had an old blog post about it, but it wasn’t super helpful, and doesn’t look to have been updated for a year. A workaround might be to make a note of this when people sign up for your emails, and to tell them to add your from address to their email account, or to drag your emails into their primary account in gmail.

Okay I have to do that! I looked at something yesterday and it said to personalize the “to” field, but I don’t collect first names on the email sign-up so I don’t think that’s an option :-/ I like your advice to just say to add it to address book or to drag it into the primary folder. I didn’t realize you could do that and it would change that… hmmm… You’re so educational, Jen.

Woah that sounds like a magical, eerie sort of thing to witness. Just goes to show that when you look closely, even the most picturesque of scenes is interlaced with violence and bloodshed. Well, if not bloodshed then icky squishes.

I definitely believe in self-fulfilling prophecies. If you tell yourself that you will fail, then you will. If you tell yourself you are just going to do your best, then you will do your best. If you tell yourself you will always succeed, then you will probably be disappointed at some point.

I try to live my life in the most realistic manner possible. I try to be honest with myself and take thing at face value, as much as I can.

I also believe that I am both unlucky and lucky. I have great health, great family and friends, and a roof over my head.

But I also feel like I am unlucky in that I have a hard time taking charge unless I am 100% sure. It’s a blessing and a curse, all rolled into one.

Hi Aussa: So sorry we’ve been ghosts as of late. We’ve been locked away in our writing room for months working on our book. But we’re reaching an end and hopefully can get back to blogging and our buds like you who we’ve missed!!! Now onto the post. I think I wet myself with this one!!! lmfao~STILL!!! I tried to visualize your boyfran looking like Greg Sanders as he walks up to the rodent giving it the once over. Seriously, one day they’re going to do a spoof like this on SNL!! Loving this & sharing now!! 😉 xoxo

Your comment about maybe a bird will eat it reminded me of an event that happened to me. I lived in the middle of the bush, so there were always a bunch of vermin around. We owned a grocery store & lived in the same building, so we needed to stay on top of mice. We had traps set about the house. One morning I walked into the living room just as a trap snapped, so I called my hubby to come dispose of the mouse. He picked up the whole trap & took it to the back door, where he removed the mouse from the trap & holding it by the tail he threw it as hard as he could, trying to get it over our back fence. The mouse never hit the ground – a raven swooped down & snatched it out of the air & flew away with it!

Normally any prophesies I may encounter come in the frustrating form of completely mute dead relatives trying to “tell” me something in a dream so NO; just no… LOL As for being surrounded by ominous signs, all I got is my cat Freeta who had a strange coincidental habit of leaving us “gifts” – usually around Mother’s Day and/or my husband’s birthday. The first time it was a tiny dead mouse in my bedroom threshold AND a kitchen full of carnage seemingly impossible for such a tiny carcass. As the years passed they were somewhat neater “gifts” since she’d perform the deed outside yet still a variety of dead things – mice, voles, waterbugs, butterflies & dragonflies (the flying bugs were solely for her own enjoyment), bird eggs and a small snake.

I watched a neighborhood cat hunting bugs on my front lawn the other night and was beyond charmed. I don’t think I’d feel the same way if she were leaving the bodies of her victims for me though…

When I was little, we had a cat that once left the lower body of a frog on our back step… it’s really quite interesting that cats do this… like how is that part of their instincts? If they didn’t have humans around, would they be bringing prizes to other animals? Deep curiosities happening over here.

OMG that picture is epic. Almost doesn’t look real for how awesome-ly (err sadly) you captured the poor guy. I once hit a squirrel while driving and discovered him on my front grill. Drive immediately to the car wash and let them deal with it 🙂

Seriously though, I would have had a heart attack if there was a mouse mulling around my car while driving. It’s better this way, for you and Mr. Mouse. *You live another day to tell us more tales* 🙂

Haha I’m glad you agree with me that it was really the best possible outcome. Though… Not gonna lie, I think I have PTSD because every single time I’ve gotten in my car since then, I can’t help but look around in paranoia. Who knows, maybe it will make me a safer driver. HA.

Self-fulfilling prophecies are… interesting. They don’t really happen for me, honestly. The closest I get is when I predict that I will have difficulty doing an assignment for school that I previously announced I would have trouble with. My parents call it a self-fulfilling prophecy. I call it realism and self-knowledge. It seems we will never agree on that point.

Perspective is… interesting. On one hand, some of my problems seem smaller now. But for some of those problems, the reason for my thinking that is due to the troubles of someone I know, which is not so good.

You know, the possibility has now occurred to me that the aforementioned rat could be a sacrifice. After all, they were some of the people we’ve never seen come out of their house. Granted, that includes the majority of the population of this neighborhood, but still… You make me think scary thoughts sometimes, Aussa.

Also – I’m writing an essay about my neighborhood. I have ben told, among other things: No, it wasn’t just rumors of gang activity. No, you were not imagining the SWAT team that stormed the neighbor’s house. I’m definitely writing a post about this.

[…] the word “murder” in them– since I kind of sort of murdered a guy I work with, definitely murdered this mouse with my car door, was pretty sure I was going to be murdered on my first day of work, and am (according to Alex) an […]